


where violent sorrow seems

by kyrilu



Category: House of Cards (US TV)
Genre: Character Death, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Manipulation, Multi, Murder, Post-Canon, References to Shakespeare, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 20:19:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1239517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrilu/pseuds/kyrilu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows this story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where violent sorrow seems

**Author's Note:**

> More Macbeth references because I can't help myself.
> 
> (Also, um, spoilers for the original House of Cards UK, although I changed things for my own usage.)

**(equivocator)**

He knows this story. He’s known this story since he was sixteen, long-legged and slouching, leaning over and doodling a picture of a crown on his school desk. He doesn’t remember it much when he’s older, but eventually he does.

It starts: _When shall we three meet again?_  

 

 

 **(in thunder, lightning, or rain)**  

There’s a storm that knocks out the White House power. It happens in a clap of deafening noise, right when Mr. Underwood is consulting with his vice president. What erupts next is a clatter of hurried voices, rushing to restore the backup generator, and Edward hurrying to Mr. Underwood’s side in the dark.

“Mr. President?” he says cautiously, amid the black.

“Here,” Mr. Underwood says, and Edward feels the press of a hand. “I’m here.” 

Mr. Underwood’s hand is…gentle, of all things, calm, despite the urgency of the outside storm. Edward stands there for a dazed second, feeling Mr. Underwood’s hand on his side. He can hear Mr. Underwood’s breath: a metronome of one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four, like a beacon. He stands there – a stolid shield, a rigid wall– at a close, close distance.

Then Mr. Underwood tugs him in nearer, saying, amused, mocking, “Well? _Protect me.”_

Edward laughs under his breath. Mr. Underwood’s fingers tangle in his, keeping him there as if they can’t break apart, and they stand there like that, until the lights flicker on.

 

 

**(my dearest partner of greatness)**

President Walker has resigned. Mr. Underwood is already in the car, suitcases packed, and Edward re-enters the townhouse to escort Mrs. Underwood there. 

He finds her by a window, smoking a cigarette. She’s peering at her husband through the tinted car window down below. Her eyes locked on him, not flinching, intent on that shadowed figure. Mr. Underwood doesn’t seem to notice her looking.

“Ma’am?” Edward says. “It’s time to go.”

She puts the cigarette out. Turns to show him a shape of a smile.

“Yes,” she says, her words vague and half-distracted. “I imagine it is.”

(He sees something in her, then. He can’t define it now, but he’ll memorize the feeling.)

Then she refocuses. She brushes by him with a touch of her hand, and he calls her, “First Lady,” on the way downstairs, making her smile, once again.

 

 

( **the victory fell on us)**

Mr. Underwood finishes Walker’s term. Then he decides to start it again himself.

It’s a low point in Mr. Underwood’s campaign season when he suddenly falls ill. Seth Grayson mutters something about _kissing too many damned babies_ and scrambles to reschedule events, to have a reassuring public statement be sent out.

The point sinks even lower when Edward hears Mr. Underwood telling Grayson of an impending disaster – some reporter named Hammerschmidt, ready to drop an article right in the middle of his campaign.

“Can’t we stop him?” Mrs. Underwood says, her arms crossed, her tone grim.

“It is libel,” Grayson agrees. “And he’s discredited, of course, ever since the Zoe Barnes fiasco.” 

The name makes something dark flash across Mr. Underwood’s face. He dismisses Grayson from the room with a mutter and a wave of his hand.

“We need to handle Hammerschmidt,” he says, and then lets out a rough, dry cough. He doubles over; Edward can see the perspiration on his forehead.

Mrs. Underwood shakes her head. “Francis…"

“ _Take care of it_ ,” Mr. Underwood says, and Edward stills, when Mr. Underwood catches his eyes. 

He remembers: Mr. Underwood telling him to wait outside the train station, that he has business to take care of. 

He remembers: the news report, not so long after.

He’d tried to rationalize it. He honestly did. He’d handed Mr. Underwood the cufflinks and reminded himself that he has no right to question anything. That he has to do what he’s told.

Mrs. Underwood releases a soft sigh. Then she reaches into a stack of papers, and offers a file out to Edward.

“Yes,” Edward says, quietly. “I will. Sir. Ma’am.”

 

 

He comes into their bedroom with the blood and gunpowder still on his clothes, covered underneath a hastily thrown over suit jacket. He’s shaking, shivering, and he realizes that it’s not cowardice, because he’s never scared, but that he’s sick, too. 

A fever or something. He can’t think.

Edward shudders. Finds himself a space in between them, taking care to be silent. Mr. Underwood’s skin is burning hot. Doesn’t warm him up at all.

He hears Mrs. Underwood stir, and move to dance fingers through Edward’s hair.

Her eyes are almost luminescent in the darkness.

“Hey, ma’am,” he whispers, then he says her name like a prayer.

_Claire. Claire._

He curls himself closer between them, trying to get the warmth from Mr. Underwood’s body heat, still wracked with chills. Mrs. Underwood echoes his name back, and then he’s lost to the oblivion of sleep.

 

 

**(by the pricking of my thumbs)**

He tries to keep everything together with these happy flashes of moments. 

There’s the time that Mr. Underwood wins the presidency – “It seems as if democracy has its uses,” he says to an unseen audience – and then all three of them are lost to the heat of the moment, twining against each other, reassuring each other with touch.

There’s the time that the Underwoods reserve a restaurant all to themselves. Have the table set with the courses. Then they invite Edward to join in – the only part of the security detail inside, everyone else is outside and oblivious – and he laughs with them in the dim candlelight.

He lets himself court them with every intonation of _sir_ and _ma’am_. He watches as Mr. Underwood toys with the world, having secured himself a seat through election, and Mrs. Underwood by his side. They are dignified and perfect and mighty.

And he protects them.

 

 

Then the ghost of Zoe Barnes slips through the cracks. All the ghosts come knocking through the door, names that they thought they had forgot: Rachel Posner, Lucas Goodwin, Gavin Orsay, and even Tom Hammerschmidt. 

Mrs. Underwood stops him by a blue-lit window, and Edward sees that coldness, that coldness that she’d had in her gaze when she blew smoke into the air, watching her shadow-shrouded husband.

“Make him a hero,” she says. “Before it’s too late.”

 

 

He’s touching the gun that he’s wearing at his side when Mr. Underwood tells him that it’s time to go. 

“Yes,” he says, and thinks of Mrs. Underwood saying the same thing. _I imagine it is._

 (Holding hands through the blackout. The lights turn on.)

 

 

In broad daylight, he fires at the Vice President, once, twice. Then he turns his gun to Mrs. Underwood’s heart, and then lets Mr. Underwood take the bullet instead.

Mr. Underwood – no, Francis – crumples. Crumples like Zoe Barnes did under the train; like Peter Russo did at the passenger seat.

He sees Claire mouth _thank you._ He finally remembers that story he’d read aloud when he was sixteen, and knows that she will die by her own hand by the morning.

Then he runs. 

 

 

He’s free.

He walks out into the world and wonders who the next President will be. 


End file.
